Get Up Off Your Bended Knee
by Independent Dude
Summary: A closer look at the opening scene from "Ship Happens," told from Jack's point of view.


Get Up Off Your Bended Knee

A Eureka fanfic

I do not own Eureka nor do I own its characters.

(-)

Carter could have guessed that the spaceship would turn out to be Henry's. _From where else but Eureka_, he thought. _The weirdness capital of the universe._ The sheriff shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He had been up literally through the night, having rushed out to the meadow along with all the others to witness the return of a 20-year-old classified space probe. His exhaustion, along with the now unhurried activity of the Global Dynamics science teams as well as the perfect glint coming from the just-risen sun, leant a certain surreality to the whole tableau.

As he watched Henry and Allison go off together and examine some readouts, Carter noticed out of the corner of his eye that Dr. Fontana was walking over to the Columbus. _Have she and I been standing next to each other for the past eight hours?_ he wondered, then reflected that that was probably exactly the case. _Kind of ironic, considering two weeks ago, we couldn't _stand_ each other. _After a moment, Jack found himself following her, because it seemed like the natural thing to do. Plus, if he stayed where he was, he wouldn't have anyone to talk to.

"Little disappointed it's an American flag, instead of a…Martian one?" he asked, then instantly chided himself for the lame joke. _'Martian?' You said 'Martian?' As much modern science as even you have picked up, you use 'Martian' for your hypothetical aliens_? _Why not say they're from Mongo and work for Ming the Merciless, while you're at it? No wonder she thinks you're an idiot! _

Fortunately, Tess either missed or chose to ignore the easy opening. "Not the first contact I was hoping for…" she admitted.

Carter couldn't think of anything to add, but he didn't want Tess to think he'd dropped out of the conversation. "Yeah, it's pretty cool." _Ugh! Seriously? Smooth, Jack, real smooth... _

"…it's computer could hold the answers to questions we can't even imagine," Tess was saying, "Secrets of the universe…" And then she turned to him and smiled. "So, yeah, it's pretty cool!"

_Huh._ Carter was a little taken aback by Tess' reply. _She's really trying to mend fences_, he realized. He had to admit that their working relationship had gotten a lot less contentious over the past few days, even before the town's most recent crisis. _Probably for Allison's sake, but still…she's trying_.

Tess was back in scientist mode. "It's a long term project," she said. "It's going to take years to extract all the data…Kinda blows a hole in my weekend plans."

Jack almost chuckled. "Yeah, I hear ya." _She's actually pretty funny, when she uses her humor for good and not evil._

"No I mean there's a meteor shower on Friday," she said. "…well, it's not like you haven't seen a meteor shower before."

_…WHA-?_ Despite the lack of standard, run-of-the-mill criminal activity in Eureka, Carter's law enforcement instincts hadn't atrophied during his current assignment. In fact, they had been honed by the extraordinary cases he had had to investigate. And right now, those instincts were sending him alarms just as if he was interrogating a dangerous suspect. _She wouldn't be telling you this,_ he could almost hear one of his Academy instructors saying, _if she didn't expect you to act on it!_

He remembered the other night, when Tess had taken the initiative to join him on his stakeout. He had thought it was just more fence-mending. _But you did wonder, didn't you, Jack?_ _That conversation in the jeep got really uncomfortable really fast, didn't it? You rationalized it as just Tess being an overprotective friend, letting you know she didn't want to see Allison get hurt. But what if she had her own reasons for asking about you and Allison? Maybe _she_ had a horse in that race._

He stalled for time, replying to the last part of Tess' statement first. "No actually, I haven't."

He paused. _Well, either I'm right or I'm not. As Jo says, the best way through an ambush is straight ahead. Or did I read that in a Tom Clancy book?_ "So. Wanna go?" _Dear God, if she asks me to clarify, please don't let me say 'to the meteor-thingy.'_

For a moment, Tess said nothing. _Carter, you've done the impossible:_ _you've rendered Tess Fontana speechless!_ was his first thought. And then there it was: Jack heard the stutter in her voice, thought he heard her start to marshal her words in that acerbic tone she turned on anybody who she didn't particularly feel belonged on the same level as her. A subset which usually included him. _Please don't,_ the thought came to him. _Please don't make fun of me. If you do, I will lose all respect for you. I'll work with you, I'll be cordial to you, but I will never respect you again. _

In the split second of silence, hung out to dry as he was, Carter could swear he felt his pulse stop and wait. _ If I'm wrong, and you're not interested, you can just say -_

"Uh…okay." And then she repeated, this time with some conviction, "Okay!" before excusing herself to get back to work, trying unsuccessfully to hide the smile on her face.

"Okay, yeah," he said back, after noticing that he was still breathing. _She's been waiting for you to do that this whole time, Jack_! He watched her walk away. Then smiled and shook his head at the way things had just turned out.

_Sometimes, they just…turn out._


End file.
